Much work has been done over the years to develop methods for dispersing catalytically active metals into catalyst support materials. It is generally believed that the better the dispersion of active metals, the more active the resulting catalyst will be. Various commercially successful impregnation methods are presently used to incorporate metals into support materials. One of the most commonly used methods is impregnation of the support by "incipient wetness", which requires a minimum of metal-containing solution so that the total solution is absorbed initially or after some evaporation. In another conventional method, the metal is incorporated into the support material by treating the so-called mull mix just prior to catalyst forming, preferably extrusion through an appropriate die.
While commercially viable techniques exist for incorporating metals into catalyst support materials, many of them suffer from the problem of merely adequate metal dispersion. In the worst cases detrimental metal agglomeration will occur, which leads to significant activity loss. Consequently, there still exists a need in the art for more effective methods for dispersing catalytic metals into catalyst support materials.